With the rise in racial reckoning and the growing awareness of racial violence and racist intimidation against Black people and other people of color, the leaders of the consistory of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference (PSEC) of the United Church of Christ voted in December 2019 to educate themselves about the violence of systemic racism and to turn their hearts to action and prayer.
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Throughout the last year, this leadership group has committed itself to bringing an on-going presence of healing and anti-racism into the communities served by UCC churches in southeastern Pennsylvania. It has worked to offer ways in which churches can stand with and in support of their Black members, neighbors, and friends.
Throughout 2020, this administrative body of the PSEC has offered resources for action and prayer, and announced this month that, so far, 164 UCC churches, clergy, and congregants have signed on to its Anti-Racism Statement, released at the end of 2020.
“This is part of a powerful witness that we hope will grow with time and understanding,” said the Rev. Bill Worley, conference minister of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference. “People of faith are people of action, and it is important to remember that we are called to act on behalf of justice – social justice, economic justice, and racial justice. This statement is an outward sign of this commitment.”
In addition to its anti-racism statement, in recent months the consistory formed the Zachariah Walker Racial Justice Initiative, named for a man who was brutally lynched in Coatesville by a white mob in 1911. The initiative was born out of a desire to remember this atrocity and raise awareness about the ways people of faith can follow the prophetic call to stand up for racial justice.
“The violence of racism is a part of every day life,” said the Rev. Cean James, senior pastor of the Salt & Light congregation in Philadelphia. “It is all around us. And the historic violence was not something that happened only down South – it happened here, in Coatesville, in our own backyard. We must never forget, and we must always be vigilant so that we may recognize and address the ways that racism harms people, destroys communities, and erodes our souls then and now.”
PSEC’s Zachariah Walker Racial Justice Initiative’s focus is to work for racial justice and create a culture of anti-racism within UCC churches and surrounding communities by (1) facing and embracing their collective past, (2) opening their eyes, minds and hearts to the present racial suffering and injustice, and (3) repenting and turning their hearts once again to a loving God who creates all of humanity in the divine image.
Members of the initiative, together with PSEC consistory leaders, believe that the intergenerational sin of racism can begin to be addressed by creating a culture of anti-racism and repair.
“As we honor the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the upcoming national holiday, we pay tribute to his life and legacy and commit to hold ourselves accountable to work tirelessly on behalf of racial justice and to create a culture of anti-racism,” said the Rev. A.T. Ortíz, a consistory member and associate pastor of Glenside United Church of Christ.
“In so doing,” said Ortíz, “we hope that we, as people of faith, take to heart the message of the prophet Isaiah and become ‘repairers of the breach,’ paving a way forward to healing, reconciliation, and justice.”
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